Atlanta rapper T.I. released from Arkansas prison

ATLANTA – Atlanta rapper T.I. has been released from a federal prison in Arkansas and is headed to a halfway house in Georgia.

A lawyer for T.I. said the rapper was released Tuesday morning.

T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., last May began serving his sentence of a year and a day for illegal firearms possession and possessing a gun as a convicted felon.

Steve Sadow said his client was expected to report to Dismas Charities halfway house in Atlanta on Tuesday night and will be there for up to three months.

Sadow said Harris "did his very best to adjust to his circumstances" in prison and knew he had to pay for his crime. He said Harris was most looking forward to getting back to his family and being as productive as he can be.

Bin Laden daughter hides in Saudi embassy in Iran

A Saudi-owned newspaper says that one of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's daughters has taken refuge in the Saudi Embassy in Tehran after eluding guards who have held her and five brothers under house arrest for eight years.

It has long been believed that Iran has held in custody a number of bin Laden's children since they fled Afghanistan following the U.S.-led invasion of that country in 2001 — most notably Saad and Hamza bin Laden, who are thought to have held positions in al-Qaida.

Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper says the 17-year-old daughter, Eman, slipped away from guards and fled to the Saudi Embassy. The report quotes the embassy's charge d'affaires confirming she is there.

Iranian and Saudi officials would not immediately comment.

the Most Popular Video of 2009 Is…

Susan Boyle - Singer - With Lyrics - The funniest movie is here. Find it

...and we’re talking most popular by far, with more than 120 million views: Susan Boyle’s astonishing performance at Britain’s Got Talent. This is hardly a surprise, given the enormous buzz the video has caused. Because it’s basically a reprise of Paul Potts’s performance from 2007, one has to wonder whether Britain’s Got Talent — with its “surprising” discovery of hidden talents — will continue its YouTube reign in 2010, too. 

Susan Boyle’s performance is followed by “David After Dentist” with more than 37 million views, “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” with more than 33 million views, the trailer for the New Moon movie with 31 million views and “Evian Roller Babies” in the fifth place with more than 27 million views.

Facebook Is Destroying the Sanctity of Marriage

Stop the digital presses: People use Facebook to cheat on their spouses and said cheating leads to d-i-v-o-r-c-e (in case there are kids in the room), or so says a rather reactionary piece in the Telegraph.

The British paper seeks to cast Facebook as a enemy to the sanctity of marriage, citing evidence along the lines of:

“One law firm, which specialises in divorce, claimed almost one in five petitions they processed cited Facebook.”


Although the ratio of one in five is staggering, the fact that the reporter only mentions a single law firm is wholly unconvincing. I’m sorry, Telegraph, but one law firm does not a trend make.

The piece does make a strong case for how social media has broadened the definition of cheating (Does sex in Second Life count as sex?) and made it easier to reconnect with old flames, but it seems too early to point the finger at Facebook when it comes to couples calling it quits. In fact, the article states that the UK’s divorce rate has fallen in recent years.

Yes, Facebook and social media users have utilized online tools to screw over their spouses — the Telegraph mentions a woman whose husband notified her of their impending divorce by updating his relationship status on Facebook — but it seems rather simplistic to blame the onset of martial malcontent on a website.

Although Facebook may facilitate cheating — as well as public displays of affection (or loss of affection as the case may be) — the old argument comes into play when you start pointing fingers. Is it the medium or the message? Would these marriages have ended anyway, somewhere down the road, even if there were no incriminating chats on the laptop screen?

A sexy Dr. Watson? Jude Law says it's elementary

Jude Law hopes to rectify that situation with his charismatic performance alongside Robert Downey Jr. in "Sherlock Holmes," making the detective's right-hand-man a handsome action hero in his own right. He's just not that comfortable with his new nickname: "Hotson."

"Mostly I was only hot because I was wearing those thick tweed suits, massive overcoats and hat and gloves," Law said, deflecting the accolade. "I was always the one perspiring on set."

Law stresses that the film's version of Watson — a dapper army veteran with an eye for the ladies — is firmly based on the 19th-century stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Director Guy Ritchie wanted to give the tales a 21st-century spin while staying close to the original material.

"There's a reference in one of the books to Watson being very popular with women," Law said. "So that fits."

Far from being the bumbler familiar from classic Holmes movies, Watson is a foil and an equal for the detective, and their bickering relationship gives the film a big dose of buddy comedy.

"As soon as I knew Guy and Robert were involved, it was clearly going to be a reevaluation of a very familiar duo dynamic," said Law, cheerful and relaxed in an interview to promote the movie, which opens around the world this week.

"We were much more interested in creating this equal of two halves, both flawed and both trying to put up with living with each other and both sort of adoring each other but also hating each other."

Law, 36, has had an eventful 2009, in which he played a critically praised "Hamlet" in London's West End and on Broadway. He was also in the news for fathering a child during a brief relationship with model Samantha Burke.

Law said he was still "slightly shell-shocked" after eight months of "Hamlet," "of the most remarkable experiences in my life."

Meeting Broadway theatergoers reminded him that interacting with the public can be a pleasure. Avoiding the paparazzi is more of a chore. But he says he doesn't let it stop him.

"You just live accordingly," Law said. "You learn back routes to an awful lot of places. The glamour is going in through the kitchen and over the back fence."

Alaina Reed-Amini, ‘Sesame Street’ Resident, Dies at 63

Alaina Reed-Amini, an actress and singer whose best-known characters were denizens of two of television’s celebrated addresses, “Sesame Street” and the tenement known only by its street number, “227,” died Thursday in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 63.

The cause was cancer, her publicist, Billy Laurence, said.

Through most of her career — before her marriage to Tamim Amini in 2008 — Ms. Reed-Amini was known as Alaina Reed Hall or Alaina Reed. She was an accomplished cabaret singer and musical theater performer when she arrived on “Sesame Street,” public television’s long-running children’s program, in 1976, seven years into the life of the show. She played Olivia, a photographer whose brother, Gordon (played by Roscoe Orman) was already a character on the show.

She remained in the cast until 1988, frequently performing in skits with Mr. Orman that illustrated lessons about sibling relationships. She also sang, either solo or with her “Sesame Street” neighbors, human and puppet.

In 1985, Ms. Reed-Amini was cast in “227,” a comedy series about the residents of an apartment building in Washington that focused on the character of Mary Jenkins, an engaging busybody (played by Marla Gibbs), her family and their neighbors. Ms. Reed-Amini played Rose Lee Holloway, a single neighbor and friend of Mary’s who became, at one point, the building’s landlord. While working on “227” she met and married a fellow cast member, Kevin Peter Hall. (Their characters married on the show as well.) Mr. Hall died in 1991.

Bernice Reed was born Nov. 10, 1946, in Springfield, Ohio, and attended Kent State University. She was already known as Alaina Reed when she began singing in New York nightclubs in the early 1970s, usually to glowing reviews.

“Miss Reed is a lean, willowy young woman with a gospel-based style that sometimes takes her to the edges of the Aretha Franklin idiom of pop singing but, primarily, is used to project her songs with an unusual sense of believability,” John S. Wilson wrote of her in The New York Times in 1972.

She appeared in musical theater pieces, including “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road,” an adaptation of the Beatles’ album, and William Finn’s “In Trousers,” the first of a trilogy of plays about a young gay man named Marvin. (Parts two and three became the Broadway musical “Falsettos.”) On Broadway, she appeared as a replacement cast member in the original “Chicago,” the 1977 revival of “Hair” and “Eubie!”

Ms. Reed-Amini appeared on numerous television series, among them “A Different World,” “Ally McBeal,” “Friends,” “The Drew Carey Show” and “E.R.” Her movie credits included “Death Becomes Her” and “Cruel Intentions.”

Ms. Reed-Amini’s first marriage ended in divorce. Her survivors include her husband; information about others was not available.

World markets rise on stronger US housing sales

Asian and European stock markets were higher Wednesday after a jump in U.S. housing sales suggested the world's biggest economy is picking up speed.

Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney all rose after major U.S. indexes gained Tuesday on news that November home resales jumped 7.4 percent, above a forecast 2.5 percent. As trading got started in Europe, benchmarks in Germany, France and Britain were up about 0.5 percent. Stock futures augured modest gains Wednesday on Wall Street.

The housing figures, which came after upbeat earnings and forecasts from technology companies and more corporate dealmaking, countered gloom about third quarter economic growth being revised lower.

The advance in stocks is "being driven by sentiment out of the U.S. and the fact that U.S. markets continue to hold up in the face of rather mixed data," said Kirby Daley, senior strategist at Newedge Group in Hong Kong.

China's benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 23.26 points, or 0.8 percent, to 3,073.78, while Sydney's S&P/ASX added 0.8 percent to 4,739.30 amid strength in coal stocks.

Tokyo was closed for a holiday after the benchmark Nikkei 225 added 1.9 percent on Tuesday. Hong Kong's Hang Seng reversed losses to climb 236.70, or 1.1 percent, to 21,328.74.

Investors were closely watching U.S. markets in the absence of major Asian developments.

"The market realizes that as long as China remains strong, Asia is going to benefit, and as long as the U.S. doesn't hit a major bump in the road, Asia will remain stable," Daley said. However, he said that after recent strong gains, "I don't think there will be a significant push higher."

China's government is forecasting full-year 2009 growth of 8.3 percent following a rebound driven by Beijing's 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus. Private sector economists expect growth of up 9.4 percent.

Elsewhere, Seoul's Kospi gained 0.4 percent to 1,661.35, while Singapore was up 0.6 percent and Taiwan's Taiex rose 0.6 percent.

Tuesday on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 50.79, or 0.5 percent, to 10,464.93 following the housing report by the National Association of Realtors.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.97, or 0.4 percent, to 1,118.02, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 15.01, or 0.7 percent, to 2,252.67. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are at their highest levels since last October.

That came despite a government report revising down U.S. third-quarter gross domestic product growth. The Commerce Department's new reading showed a growth rate of 2.2 percent, down from the previous estimate of 2.8 percent. The growth, while smaller than originally believed, still managed to break a record four straight quarters of decline.

Oil rose 26 cents to $74.66 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In currencies, the dollar fell 0.2 percent to 91.65 yen. The euro was little changed at $1.4253.

Weapons-carrying plane headed for Sri Lanka

The mystery of an aircraft seized in Thailand with a cache of North Korean weapons deepened further Wednesday when a senior Thai police officer said it was not headed to Iran as some reports have indicated.

The five-man crew charged with illegal arms possession also insisted their destination was Sri Lanka and not Iran when it was seized in the Thai capital where it made a refueling stop, their lawyer said Wednesday.

Defense lawyer Somsak Saithong told the Associated Press shortly after visiting the jailed crew that they also denied any knowledge of accused international weapons trafficker Victor Bout, who is in the same prison battling attempts to be extradited to the United States on terrorism charges.

There has been much speculation since it was impounded Dec. 12 about where the plane was headed and whether it was linked to Bout.

"They told me they don't know Victor Bout," Somsak said. He quoted the five men — four from Kazakhstan and one from Belarus — as saying that their flight plan called for a refueling stop in Bangkok before flying on to Sri Lanka.

Police Col. Supisarn Bhaddinarinath, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division, said that investigators have so far found no evidence that the aircraft was bound for Iran or any link between Bout and the arms seizure.

But according to a flight plan seen by arms trafficking researchers, the aircraft was chartered by Hong Kong-based Union Top Management Ltd., or UTM, to fly oil industry spare parts from Pyongyang to Tehran, Iran, with several other stops, including Bangkok, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

Thai authorities, acting on a U.S. tip, impounded the Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane after uncovering 35 tons of weapons, reportedly including explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and components for surface-to-air missiles. The plane's papers described its cargo as oil-drilling machinery for delivery to Sri Lanka.

"They always deny any involvement with the weapons or any charges they are accused of. They told me that their job was just to fly the cargo plane to its destination. They don't know about or had anything to do with the cargo itself," Somsak quoted his clients as saying.

The U.N. imposed sanctions in June banning North Korea from exporting any arms after the communist regime conducted a nuclear test and test-fired missiles. Impoverished North Korea is believed to earn hundreds of millions of dollars every year by selling missiles, missile parts and other weapons to countries such as Iran, Syria and Myanmar.

Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based North Korea watcher for the International Crisis Group think tank, said that while the incident remains murky, it was clear that U.N. sanctions have not stopped North Korea from trying to engage in arms sales.

"It's a major source of foreign exchange and earnings for the Korean People's Army," Pinkston said. "I don't think anyone believed they were going to desist or just say, 'OK, well, you guys wrote up a tough resolution so we're gonna get out of this business now.'"

But he said that cases such as the Bangkok seizure will likely have an impact on those willing to purchase North Korean weapons.

"It's very clear that if you are a buyer you run a risk of losing your cargo or getting intercepted," he said.

The Thai government has been investigating the arms cache and says it will send the results to the United Nations.

Somsak said the five men complained that they had been forced by police investigators into signing documents written in Thai. They asked to be provided with a translator "or someone who can explain to them what is going on."

The report on the flight plan from the nonprofit groups TransArms in the United States and IPIS of Belgium was funded by the Belgian government and Amnesty International. It could not be independently verified.

The report says the plane was registered to Air West, a cargo transport company in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Asked to comment on whether the plane was bound for Tehran, company owner Levan Kakabadze told The Associated Press that he was unaware of the plane's final destination.

Speaking by telephone from Batumi, Georgia, Kakabadze said that he had leased the plane to the SP Trading company and could bear no responsibility for what happened next.

"I know that the flight documents listed the cargo as oil drilling equipment. It turned out that they were carrying weapons," Kakabadze said. "After leasing the plane, I can't be held responsible for what happened. It's a problem for people who leased the plane. I have nothing else to say."

The authors cite confidential e-mails saying that UTM had ruled out a direct flight from Pyongyang to Tehran.

The report also raises multiple questions, including why the plane would stop in Thailand, since arms traffickers would be wiser to fly over China toward the former Soviet republics and on to Iran, rather than the well-policed southeastern Asian country.

"I don't know why they chose to stop in Thailand, we will investigate this further," the Thai police colonel said.

It says that the final flight plan shows that the aircraft stopped at an Azerbaijani air force base a few miles (kilometers) north of the capital, Baku, on its way to North Korea, and was expected to make a stop there on its way back from Pyongyang to Tehran.

An Azerbaijani aviation spokesman Tuesday denied the plane stopped in his country, which shares a border with neighboring Iran.

"The claims that the plane made a refueling stop in Azerbaijan have nothing to do with reality," said Maharram Safarli, a spokesman for the national flag carrier AZAL. "This plane has never landed in Azerbaijan."

The researchers say that the plane's previous registration documents link it to Air Cess and Centrafrican Airlines, which are allegedly connected to Bout, who has been in prison in Thailand since he was arrested March 6.

But the report, which was released Monday, said there was not enough evidence to link the plan definitively to Bout.

Plane overshoots Jamaica runway; more than 40 hurt

KINGSTON, Jamaica – An American Airlines flight from Miami with more than 150 aboard overshot a runway while landing during a heavy rainstorm in Kingston Tuesday night, injuring more than 40 people, officials said.

Flight 331 skidded across a road at Norman Manley International Airport and halted at the edge of the Caribbean Sea, apparently prevented from going into the water only by the upward slope of the sand. The nose of the jet was less than 10 feet from the water.

Some 44 passengers were taken to nearby hospitals with broken bones and back pains, Information Minister Daryl Vaz told The Associated Press. Four people were seriously injured, said Paul Hall, senior vice president of airport operations.

The plane's fuselage was cracked, its right engine broke off from the impact and the left main landing gear collapsed, said Tim Smith, an American Airlines spokesman at the company's headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. Most of the injuries were cuts and bruises and none were life threatening, though he had no details, he said.

The Boeing 737-800, which originated at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., had taken off from Miami International Airport at 8:52 p.m. and arrived in Kingston at 10:22 p.m. It was carrying 148 passengers and a crew of six, American said. The majority of those aboard were Jamaicans coming home for Christmas, Vaz said.

Those getting off the plane were bleeding, mostly from the upper parts of their bodies.

Passenger Pilar Abaurrea described a chaotic scene when the plane hit the ground with a loud crash skidded along the runway.

"All of a sudden, when it hit the ground, the plane was kind of bouncing, someone said the plane was skidding and there was panic," Abaurrea of Keene, N.H., said in a telephone interview.

As the crew opened the emergency exits and people scrambled to get off, 62-year-old Abaurrea and her husband, Gary Wehrwein, noticed a number of people with injuries, including one person who had a cut on his head from falling baggage.

Abaurrea said she had pain in her neck and back from the impact and her husband had pain in a shoulder from falling luggage, but were otherwise unhurt. "I'm a little bit shook up but OK," she said.

Abaurrea said the flight was very turbulent, with the crew being forced to halt the beverage service three times before finally giving it up. Just before landing, the pilot warned of more turbulence but said it likely wouldn't be much worse than what they had experienced so far, she said.

Smith said it was too soon to provide details about the precise of the extent of the damage to the aircraft.

The airport has not reopened because of concerns that the plane's tail might be hindering visibility, Security Minister Dwight Nelson told Radio Jamaica.

Some 400 passengers were waiting for their flights to be cleared for takeoff, he said.